Generation 2?
by green. simply wicked
Summary: Cross between Maximum Ride and The Lake House. Fax, Iggy/OC, Max/possible OC. rated T. Why not read it, deep down you probably want to, so stop denying you inner self!
1. Chapter 1 to 4

"Uh! I am so sick of this!"

The flock and I were spread out on the floor of a cave looking at the documents form the institute in New York. I figured since I was done saving the world and all that we might as well concentrate on finding our parents again., but as usual, the search was leading nowhere.

"Argh!" I cried again , getting frustrated. "There's got to be more information. Maybe a paper we missed?" I sent the flock on a rampage through the back packs. Grabbing the closest one --- Iggy's--- I pawed through it. I didn't find any paper, but I did find two bombs.

"Max!" Fang called out suddenly. I ran over, knelt by him and took the pieces of crumpled paper from his hands. As I studied them I gasped. The were sketches, almost like the Vitruvian Man, but more like the Vitruvian _Bird_ Man. It was a sketch of a young boy with wings. The top of the page said Matthew: and 9. I looked closer at the drawing and saw that the boy's wings weren't exactly wings, but somehow connected to his arms. The boy had striking physical features and even in the mere sketch a sad, seriousness shone through the boy's eyes. By now the flock had gathered around me, eager to so what I had found. Still shaky, I wordlessly handed the papers over to Fang. I saw him swallow hard, which is his equal to fainting from shock.

Finally Nudge broke the silence, "Well what is it? Is it about our parents, or is it more codes? I hate those codes! There so confusing! They----" Iggy clapped a hand over her mouth.

I looked at Fang. We had to tell them. "They're about more bird kids." I told them. Three astonished gasps greeted my announcement. Fang passed out the papers and we began to investigate. For the next hour we carefully examined each paper. Originally, we had thought that the flock and the erasers were the only mutants to survive past infancy. Then when we went to Germany to bust up the Itex HQ, we had found thousands of mutants and super humans. But these sketches were older than that. Way older than us even. Could we really be bird kids version 2.0?

By the end of the hour the flock and looked over 5 of the 6 sheets. We had identified five bird kids; Matthew, who was nine when the sketch was drawn, Wendy and Peter who were 4, Ozymandias who was 12, and Icarus 11 and blind. Ok, am I going crazy (very possible) or does anyone else see parallels here?

_Connections are good, Max._

Whoa, voice whiplash, thank God it's not the real thing.

Fang was holding the last paper when he said, "Ah, Max? You better come here."

I obliged and looked at the paper. It was a beautiful young girl. At the top it said:

Maximum: age 12

My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped_. Maximum_. She had my name. _She had my name! _Or maybe I had her's? I began to choke as my body screamed for oxygen. Fang put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.

_Connections are good, Max._

And this time it wasn't whiplash.

WHY? I cried mentally, but of course, the Voice didn't answer.

"What is it, Max?" Angel asked.

Okay, time to put on my game face and pretend as it this was just a coincidence, a sick, freaky coincidence.

Fang showed the rest of the flock the paper. "Max!" Nudge cried, "it's you. Well it's not you , but it's your name! How weird it that? I---" someone put a hand over her mouth.

"Yeah, sweetie," I said weakly. I sat down and closed my eyes, trying not to barf. Suddenly, Nudge was calling my name again,

"Max! Max! C'mere!"

I crouched by Nudge. "What is its Sweetie?

"Listen to this," she said aloud from the bottom of Maximum's paper: "Produced two eggs: Ozymandias(II) and Frances Jane on. . .Hey! Isn't that the year you, Fang, and Iggy were born? And look what else it says: location unknown."

"Wait!" I said. Nudge obediently stopped.

Location unknown? All of the paper, including Maximum's, had said "recovered". Did this mean these bird kids could still be out there? Could we help them?

_Max, what do you think?_

Oh, I'll tell you what I think, Voice!

"Okay guys, listen up1 how do you feel about a new mission?" Five pairs of eyes stared at me, intrigued. "Think about it; all these kids, well, you saw the date on the papers yourselves; they must be ancient. If their expiration date hasn't already kicked in (the flock winced when I said this), then 'recovered' must mean trapped at the school(more wincing). But the others, Oyz-whatever and Frances Jane have an 'unknown location', which might---just might---mean they're not at the school." I tapped Gazzy one the shoulder to refocus his attention "So," I pressed on, " I think our new mission should be to try to find these kids!" I ended my speech and waited for the other's reactions. Fang caught my eye and gave me the slightest head nod, which meant he was on board.

Iggy chimed out, "How do you expect to find them? The could be anywhere in the country, no, sorry, they could be anywhere in the _world_."

I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue and call him a party pooper. Instead I said "Ig, it appears bird kids have a knack for finding each other. Plus, I think I remember you saying something like this when I told you we had to save the world." Iggy shrugged, his sightless eyes almost seemed trained on me.

"I think it's a good idea, Max," Angel said, or rather yawned.

Shoot, I realized, I've gotta get these kids to bed.

"You know what?" I said, "Why don't we sleep on it and you can tell me in the morning." There was some grumbling in agreement. We did our stack thing and went to sleep.

I sat down for my watch at the mouth of the cave. I was doing less watching and more thinking. Tonight's events played out in my mind over and over again. Would it really be possible to find the other kids?

"Did you actually read this?"

I stifled a gasp. Fang had appeared out of no where. He was sitting beside me, holding Maximum's paper.

"Quit creeping up on me like that!"

Fang ignored me and began to read: "Produced two eggs: Ozymandias (II) and Frances Jane. . ."

I looked at him. What was the point the was trying to make here?

He read again, "_Produced two eggs_: Ozymandias (II) and Frances Jane."

I looked at him. "You don't mean---" but Fang just shrugged and left.

That night a had a dream. I was in pain like no pain I had experienced in my entire life. I writhed about on the floor in agony. Finally it stopped and a noticed something at my feet. At first I thought it was a ball, but then I saw it got smaller at the top and came to a rounded point. It was an egg

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Chapter 2

In the morning, by the powers of persuasion invested in me, I managed to convince the flock the flock to take on our mission.

"Okay, Nudge," I said finally, "do your thing."

Nudge pick up the papers and closed her eyes and, amazingly, her mouth. She held each paper in her hand for a minute, brushing her fingertips lightly over the page. Then she opened her eyes and the Nudge Channel was back on.

"Okay, well there was a man who handled these. He hated the kids, Max, he wanted to kill them, but I don't think he did. And someone else held these, I think it was that girl, Maximum. The emotions weren't, like, exactly human, you know? Bird kids seem to think differently. Anywhoo, Maximum wasn't exactly looking at the papers, just, like, filing them. But here's the weird thing, I--I think I've felt her emotions before---when we where in Colorado.

I looked at Nudge. "When," I stammered, "when was this?"

"I don't know." she said. "Like, when we were going into town or something."

"why didn't you tell me?"

"I was really young then," Nudge explained, "I figured it was just one of the flock or something."

"Well," I said, turning to the rest of the flock, "at least we know where to start."

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Chapter 3

Luckily, we were pretty near Colorado so the flight only took us an hour or two. Well, it _should_ have taken us that long but we had to stop once for food and stop six times to pee. You would have thought that in the evil scientists' quest to make us perfect, they would have given us stronger bladders, but sadly, no.

We landed in the woods near where the town used to be and began walking from there. About a quarter of a mile later, Iggy stopped and sniffed the air.

"There was a fire around here. It was awhile ago, but it was a pretty big fire." Iggy turned in the general direction of the flock. "How big are the trees here?" he asked.

"They're pretty skinny, Iggy." I said.

He nodded, turned and started walking. Iggy being the expert and all things having to do with fire and explosions, we figured we should follow him.

When we caught up to Iggy, he was standing in front of what looked like the burnt down remains of one really large house or a couple of medium sized houses.

"What is it?" Iggy asked, able to see the disaster before him, but totally able to sense its presence.

"You were right, Iggy, there was a fire. This is the house it burned down." I looked at Nudge. She looked like she might cry.

The flock and I picked our way through the rubble and ash, looking to find out what happened. Nudge bent down to pick something up, but sprang back up. I looked at her, alarmed.

"Max! She's been here!" Nudge cried. " Maximum's been here!" Nudge picked up something else. "So have the other kids. I think they were kind of a flock." Nudge bent down again, this time she picked up a picture frame. Nudge smiled sadly at the picture. The picture was of a man and a woman, a couple probably. There was the edge of what was probably a lake in the picture as well "Something wonderful happened here," Nudge sighed, "Then something really sad happened." Suddenly Nudge looked at me. "Max, it think we should go to where ever this picture was taken. I don't know why, but I really feel we should."

"That's great, sweetie," I said, "but we really don't know anything about this photo or where it was taken. I'm sorry."

Nudge shrugged dejectedly the tossed the picture on the ground. Upon impact, the frame broke and the glass shattered. "Oh no!" Nudge cried. Fang knelt down and picked up the photo. He brought it over to me with his eyebrows raised giving me an I-think-you-should-see-this looked. he handed me the photo so that the backside was facing up. The top of it read "Directions to Lake House" and was followed by, well, directions to the lake house.

"How convenient." Fang said.

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Chapter 4

How convenient was right. What wasn't convenient was the fact that the first direction said take I97 to exit 6. The directions went by road, which meant we would have tons and tons of fun figuring out what it looked like on a map.

I'm going to spare you the time in between, but if you must know, there was a lot of yelling arguing, swearing and Iggy telling us the we were doing a worse job at reading the map than he was.

An hour later, we were flying over some major highway I'd never heard trying to read the writing on the tiny read signs below. I was peering at a sign when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at Fang, who motioned behind us.

"Flyboys."

I looked behind us and saw a swarm of twenty or so , I assuming headed after us, because I mean, who else would they be after?

"Crap." I muttered. "Yo! Flyboys at six o'clock!"

The Flock turned around and prepared for battle.

_Max, you have to destroy all the flyboys. _

Wow, Voice. Thanks for the tip, never would have figured that one out on my own.

_No, Max, I mean you have to destroy _all _of them. They can't figure out where you're going._

Why? I wondered, but the Voice was silent.

As the swarm was quickly approaching, I yelled out, "Ok, make sure we get all the flyboys; we don't want any following us!"

As soon as those words had left my lips, the flyboys descended on us. I made a swift roundhouse kick to the nearest one and sent him sprawling sideways. I was about to punch him where his robot neck met his skull*, when I realized I was still holding the picture. I tried to shove it in my pocket, but a flyboy grabbed my arm. I thrust my elbow back into his chest and he let go, but not before another could grab my wrist. He started squeezing I gasped in pain, if he kept squeezing he would break my wrist! I squirmed and kicked but he didn't let go. I started to loose feeling in my hand and my fingers loosened their grip. "No!' I screamed but it was too late. The Flyboy grabbed to picture and took off. I screamed in fury and flew after him, pouncing on him and wrapping my good arm around his neck. Suddenly, I heard a scream above me. My head whipped up and I looked around. The flock had taken out most of the flyboys, but nobody seems in trouble. While I was distracted, the flyboy jerked backwards and threw me off, sending me somersaulting through the air. The flyboys were escaping.

"Iggy!" I cried.

"Way ahead of you, Max." he said, pulling out a bomb and throwing it at the receding flyboys. The bomb exploded and bits flaming flyboy flew everywhere. I looked at the falling debris and couldn't see the picture anywhere. "Flock; report!" I called. One by one they each called "here" and flew down to me.

"What are we going to do now?" Angel asked.

"Well," I said, "they tried to get the picture, but it probably blew up with them. But there's a plan. There's always a plan."

Max? You need to fly north east from here.

Uh, ok.

I'm very disappointed in you, Max.

Huh?

You should have had a back up plan. An extra copy of the directions. I should not have to do everything for you. This is a very important mission.

When did you become so interested?

. . .

I sighed. "Okay, if we head north east, we'll still be going the right way. Let's go." I began to fly in the direction my internal compas told me was right.


	2. chapter 5

**Ok, so I didn't mean to publish the last page, well I did, but I had written up to chapter six and forgot to click the save button. Then, when I tried to delete the story, I accidentally deleted the file, so I was pretty mad. . .very mad actually. If it wasn't for people leaving reviews, I probably would not have continued the story, so thanks a bunch! The reviews simply made my day!**

**Oh yeah and here's this too:**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any thing from the Maximum Ride series or from When the Wind Blows/ The Lake House. I do not own any of the character. Even Fang, sadly. **

**Enjoy and Review! **

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Chapter 5

We were flying north east, just like the Voice had told me. I figured by flying in a straight line, we would have less travel time, and that was a good thing because the fight had taken a lot out of the younger kids.

Max? said the Voice, look below you. Do you see that house?

Yeah, but---

That's the lake house. Land anywhere, there's no one around. 

_How do you know this? _The Voice had never seemed so authoritative. It was getting really annoying real fast. 

Of course there was no answer. I shouldn't set my expectations so high.

_I think you'll find out soon enough. I hope we will meet soon, Max._

"WHAT?!" I cried.

"Whoa, Max. Are you okay?" Nudge was staring at me, wide-eyed.

"Oh." Did I just say that out loud?! "Ah, the Voice told me we need to land there." I dove downward, feeling Fang's eyes on me as a flew.

Voice! What are you talking about? I spun on my heels and watched the rest of the flock descend. I had figured the voice was Jeb---no, I had been _sure_ it was. The Voice could have been lying, But something in its tone made me think otherwise. It had and eager sound. A bad eager. A scary eager. 

"Uh, Max?" Gazzy's voice brought me back to reality. 

"Yeah, Sweetie?"

"Um, what are we going to do now?"

I realized that while I had been trying to understand the inner workings of my mind, my flock had been standing in awkward silence, waiting for my orders.

"Oh, uh, we're going inside." I said. "Gazzy, help Iggy; these steps are tricky."

"I'll be fine on my own," Iggy muttered.

I shrugged---oops, "Iggy, I shrugging."

I went up the steps, onto the porch, and tried the door. It was unlocked. Behind me I heard a loud crash and, well, it's Iggy so you can guess what _else _I heard. I had to bite my lip to keep from saying 'I told you so.'

Once we were all in the house, the Flock and I began to walk down the hallway. Nudge ran her hand along the wall as we walked and smiled.

"Max and the other kids were here. They felt so happy and safe," she said.

We were just about to enter the kitchen when Iggy motioned for us to stop. Then I heard it, the sound of the front door shutting. I looked around. There were no windows, no doors, no nothing. _We were trapped _and it was all my fault. Suddenly I heard voices;

"H-hey?"

"Hello?"

"Who's there?"

Then two of the most beautiful people I have ever seen came walking down the hallway. They froze when they saw us. The pair was a boy and a girl, both about my age. The girl had long, fine hair, so blond it was almost white. The hair framed a face so beautiful it hurt to look at. Intense blue eyes stared out inquisitively, while full, red lips pursed in fear. The boy was no less in comparison. A shock of sandy hair fell into his gorgeous eyes, which were the color of the sea after a storm. He had a lean, muscular body, which he held in a tall, assured manner. They were inhumanly beautiful, probably because they weren't human. I could see wings sprouting off both of their arms, the feathers, which were almost an opal color, shone. I heard Iggy gasp; Angel must have sent him a mental image.

I extended my wing a little so they could get the scent, then fully extended it into view. I watched the children's eyes widen. Finally the boy spoke:

"I'm Ozymandias and this is my sister Frances Jane."

"I'm Max." I said, but something in Ozymadias's look made me add, "No, not that Max." As his eyes fell. "But we want to find her, that is me, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, The Gasman, and Angel." I said, pointing to each flock member as I spoke their name.

"We'll help too," he said. I was startled. Ok, sure, go ahead and invite your self, its not like we could possibly mind. Then I realized that Max was his mother, and, well, if my mom went missing, I'd do anything to get her back.

We stood in silence for a moment, then Ozymandias said, "We should go tell Kit."

His sister nodded, then spoke for the first time, "Yes, Kit will know what to do." She turned to us, "Kit was our caretaker when everyone else had gone. You can trust him. We'd trust him with our lives."

I looked at Angel and she nodded.

"Ok," I agreed, "We'll go." 

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**So the flock is going to see Kit, what do you think. I can't imagine what Kit's reaction will be, but that's just part of the fun of writing!**

**A cookie to whom who can guess what story book character Ozymandias (man, that name is long to type!) is modeled after!**


	3. Chapter 6

After flying for a while we landed in a patch of woods on the outskirts of a city. From there, we put jackets on to cover our wings and walked a couple blocks until Ozymandias stopped at a large apartment building.

"Kit lives here."

I shrugged. "Let's go in."

When we entered the building Ozymandias and Frances Jane headed towards the elevator. The Flock and I stopped short.

"Uh, are there stairs we can take?" I asked.

"Why?"

I looked at him, stunned. Why? Because we have lived in freaking dog crates and enclosed windowless spaces make us murderous, that's why! I couldn't believe this guy!

"Because were exercise freaks and health nuts, that's why. Now are there stairs, or what?"

He shrugged and pointed. "There. Kit's room is on the fifth floor. Number 305."

"Thanks." Yeah, thanks a bunch.

. . . . . . . . .

Five flights of stairs later, we met Ozymandias and Frances Jane in front of a door marked 305.

"We'll go in first."

There he goes again, not asking anyone's opinion and probably not caring either. Pompous jerk. But, like before, I couldn't argue. Ozymandias and Frances Jane went into the apartment and closed the door. As soon as they were gone, I turned to Angel.

"Are you picking up anything from them?"

"Well," she said slowly, "The girl is really curious. She can't figure out why we look different. Our wings and stuff. But she's really intelligent, they both are. But I don't think they know about the school. And the boy, he's. . .well, he really wants to protect his sister. And find his mother. And. . .yeah."

Ok, is it me or was that very peculiar? Was Angel trying to hide something from me? And of she was, why would she do that?

I didn't have a chance to ask her about it because at that very moment, Ozymandias opened the door and said, with his usual conviction, "You can come in now."

We filed into the room and closed the door behind us. No going back now.

The apartment was nice, spacious, and had many windows. At the counter, a handsome, middle aged man with glasses and gray streaks peppering his blonde hair sat reading a newspaper. The man did not look up as we entered the room.

"Kit, this is Max."

Kit's head snapped up so fast I thought he would get whiplash. "What!?"

"No, not that Max." said Frances Jane quietly.

"Yes, of course not." Kit smiled sadly.

"But we want to find!" You know me, never the wall flower.

"You want to find who, sweetheart?" Kit asked, giving Ozymandias a suspicious glance.

"Um, Maximum, obviously." Never was much for manners either.

"So you want to find. . .Max?" Kit was beginning to look sketched-out.

"No, Oprah Winfrey." I was getting impatience.

Kit was openly confused now.

"Of course we want to find Max! Sheesh, what else would we be here for?"

By now, Kit had regained a semblance of composure.

"Oz, is there something about your new friends that you aren't telling me?"


	4. Chapter 7

"You didn't tell him!" I cried. "What's the matter with you?"

"I. . I didn't know how to tell him."

So pretty boy was communication-aly flawed? Lovely.

"I can't believe you! How could you not tell him?" I shouted.

"TELL ME WHAT?" Kit roared, causing everyone to jump in surprise.

"They have wings." Apparently, Frances Jane couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

Kit looked at me, "You have wings?" He looked at the flock, "You all have wings?"

"You bet we do!" Gazzy pumped his fist proudly. Kit put his hand on his head, "I don't believe it."

Angel, who was standing behind me, gently pressed something into my hand. She looked up and smiled at me. Then she started to walk forward.

"Oh hello, I didn't notice you there," said Kit, still frazzled.

Angel didn't say anything, but she smiled and took his hand.

Then, ever so slowly, she began to spread her wings.

Despite not having bathed recently, Angel's wings shone pure white. With her little blonde curls and her big, innocent blue eyes she looked just like, well, an angel.

"Oh dear," Kit murmured. He gathered Angel in his arms and she buried her face in his chest. "Oh dear."

I looked down at my hand. I was holding Angel's jacket.

. . . .. . . . . . .

"Well, this certainly changes everything." Kit was still holding the now sleeping Angel. "Did you tell them anything?" Ozymandias and Frances Jane both shook their heads. "Well then, it seems we have a lot of explaining to. But now is not the time. Now it's time for bed."

I was about to protest when Nudge said; "Yeah, bed sounds great," and because she didn't keep talking, I figured she must be exhausted.

Kit smiled. "Ok, Oz, you find pillows, and Janie, you find blankets. Max, we don't have any spare rooms, so you and your flock will have to sleep in the living room." Within a few minutes the sibling completed their tasks and returned. Kit laid Angel on the couch and covered her with a blanket. We then commenced with handing out pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, etc. When all was said and done, we were one pillow short, so I opted to go without. A leader's got to make sacrifices.

The flock(with the exception of Angel) did our stack thing and went to bed. Before crawling into my make-shift bed, I went over and kissed Angel goodnight. Kit, who was walking out of the bathroom at that moment, smiled when he saw me.

"She's a sweet kid." he said.

"Yeah," I replied proudly, "she is." "Is she yours?"

Disgusted, I looked at Kit like he was crazy. "Exactly how old do you think I am?"

Kit looked genuinely surprised, "Old enough, I guess. I'm sorry."

I just shrugged. The moment had turned awkward, so Kit left and I got into bed. I had a feeling tomorrow would be a very big day.


End file.
